On Monday night, the Senate tried to take control of the situation by passing the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which included an amendment to stop Trump's deal allowing US companies to trade with ZTE. The legislation, which is considered crucial for continuing defense funding, was passed with 85-10 votes, one of a handful of times the Republican-controlled Senate has deviated from a Trump policy.

But the amendment is not guaranteed to become law. The bill will now need to be reconciled with a House version — where the amendment could be stripped out — voted through both the House and the Senate, and signed into law by Trump.

National security concerns appear to have been a crucial factor with US Senators Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, Chuck Schumer, and Chris Van Hollen releasing a joint bipartisan statement.

"We're heartened that both parties made it clear that protecting American jobs and national security must come first when making deals with countries like China, which has a history of having little regard for either," they said.

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner also tweeted that the Senate had "blocked" the Trump administration from making a "bad deal with ZTE."

"If the President won't act on warnings from his own top intelligence officials about the dangers posed by ZTE, we will," Warner said.

Earlier this year six intelligence chiefs — including the heads of the CIA, FBI, and NSA — testified they do not use, and would not recommend private citizens use products from ZTE or China's Huawei. And the Pentagon announced in early May that it had stopped selling Huawei and ZTE phones and modems in stores on its military bases because they "may pose an unacceptable risk."

"We the FBI remain deeply concerned that any company beholden to foreign governments that don't share our values are not companies that we want to be gaining positions of power inside our telecommunications network that gives them the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information, that gives them the capacity to conduct undetected espionage, that gives them the ability to exert pressure or control," Wray said when asked about the risks of giving ZTE more access to the US market.